You Will Survive; And That Might Be The Worst Part

First of all, you know this platitude. You may be a broken hearted little mess, but you didn’t loose 100 IQ points in the loss of your relationship (& you can’t loose them in a divorce either!). You may hate the fact that , but you do know it.

You know you will survive.

Often, that’s the worst part, isn‘t it? Knowing life goes on. Knowing that while you feel like your insides are ruptured, that the hemorrhaging will never end, it will.

Emotional bleeding, like a real wound, doesn’t have infinite amounts to bleed; at some time, it has to stop. And when it does, it leaves you drained, exhausted, empty. There are times you wish for the pain to end. There are times you fear the pain to end.

Sometimes it isn’t the pain that is the worst, but the numbness...

But in pain, or numbness, you are still expected to function. To eat, to go to work, to take a shower & trim your nails, to take out the trash. You find yourself living as if inside a shell, with one side that everyone sees - the side that showers, eats, takes the trash to the curb - yet you still live inside that shell. Looking out at all the ‘normalness’ and wondering why you do it, why they do it...

You will feel at once some sense of clarity, as if you finally see the futility of all existence, and yet some automatic pilot that motors you through your day. Your survival depends upon these actions, and your body knows what to do, even as your soul questions it.

It’s at this time, some well-meaning person will make that remark about time healing all wounds, & you will want to slug them. Or let loose the maniacal laughter that lurks too near the surface. It seems that neither of these responses will do - your automatic survival skills tell you this. They tell you that you will only wind up receiving more of those comments, or worse yet, some well-intentioned concern which makes you the center of attention.

And attention is the last thing you seek. In this state, you question yourself as it is. You don’t need someone else in your head...

You are tired of all the ‘go on, get out theres!’ & ‘the sun will come out tomorrows’ that every one is handing out.

I can dig it, I can. So this week, maybe, after you finish those tasks that auto-pilot says you must do, you can just spend some time with yourself. Alone. With just your thoughts. A little quiet time for the soul.

Maybe, if your soul has some time to just ‘be,’ maybe it too will start to feel a bit more like doing things too. Or at least start to feel something other than pain, and definitely not numb - but well, alive.

So feel free to say ‘no, thank you’ to those invitations from family & friends. Feel free to sit home & relax, reflect, and just be you, whatever that means.

Or feel free to be someone else too.

On more than one occasion I went to places I’d never gone before, or places like museums, alone. I took classes, took up new hobbies, where I would not be with my regular circle of firends. Where no one knew me. No one knew of my loss. No one was watching my every move to see how well I was doing. And so no one would offer silly little platitudes about clouds with silver linings, rainbows, pink kitties, or whatever else they say to be kind & helpful.

They mean well, but sometimes, those kind, concerned, happy people are more annoying than helpful.